McAnulla pleased with Omagh’s first Championship outing

TYRONE SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIP

By Niall Gartland

SIXTEEN competing Teams have been whittled down to eight over the course of one hectic weekend in the Tyrone Senior Championship, which culminated in last Sunday night’s draw for the quarter-finals.

Defending champions Errigal Ciaran have been pitted against Omagh, Loughmacrory will take on Donaghmore, Pomeroy face the might of Trillick, and Edendork were drawn against Carrickmore.

There’s already been a number of bona fide championship classics, though not every first-round contest was laden with thrills and spills.

Omagh were in total cruise control as they overcame Derrylaughan by 1-26 to 0-2 in genuinely awful conditions at Plunkett Park, and their experienced forward Jason McAnulla was pleased with how they performed on the day.

“The conditions weren’t the best, but you had to go about your job and concentrate on the basics. We were prepared for a wet ball and windy conditions and we coped well with it.

“We’d worked on our defensive approach for a long time, and recently have worked more on our attacking play, so it was good to see the attacking side of things working well for us. We kept it simple and did the right things at the right time.”

How much can Omagh learn from such a thoroughly one-sided contest? They now face holders Errigal Ciaran with a place in the semi-finals up for grabs, so it will be a steep step up. McAnulla says there’s learnings to be taken from every game though.

“Of course you can learn from it. We lost possession a few times in the first-half and tried to tidy that up after the break. We’ll look at the video, and focus more so on ourselves rather than Derrylaughan, which is what we usually do anyway.”

Whatever about the quality of their opposition, Omagh still played some really good football and one of the particularly pleasing aspects of their performance was the positive impact made by subs like Conor Meyler and Fionnbharr Taggart.

“We’ve a good squad and it’s great to see Conor back, he’s been going well in training. He got a few minutes and will build on that.

“It’s the same for Fionnbharr Taggart, and there’s other boys in the wings who didn’t even come on.

“We haven’t had a full panel and that’s usually our problem, but now we do and hopefully we’ll be ready for the next day. It does take the 20 boys, and the extra 10 or 15 after that, to keep the standards high.”